petty bourgeoisie
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of petty bourgeoisie
First recorded in 1840–50
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Painting Laszlo as some mascot for the self-involved petty bourgeoisie would be easy to do if Berry’s performance didn’t smash all expectations.
From Salon • Nov. 11, 2024
Mao extended the revolutionary class even further to include members of the intelligentsia and the petty bourgeoisie, a term describing those managing small-scale commercial undertakings.
From Textbooks • Jun. 15, 2022
As Hugo Young puts it in his book “One of Us,” the young Thatcher “belonged to the rising petty bourgeoisie, not the beleaguered working class.”
From New York Times • Nov. 16, 2020
And on the consumer level, the state’s low taxes drew Europe’s tax-averse petty bourgeoisie.
From The Guardian • Sep. 15, 2017
The ruined patricians have kept aloof from badly remunerated ecclesiastical offices to which little renown attaches, and have left them to the ambition of the petty /bourgeoisie/.
From The Three Cities Trilogy: Rome, Volume 1 by Zola, Émile
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
